Aly Bain & Friends - Aly Bain

... like a hole in the head! Film and video opinions are not my forte, so be kind ;-)

The film
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Based (as are most modern vampire films) on Bram Stoker's Dracula, this is a classic vampire movie. What you might not realise is quite how much of a classic it is! How does 1922 sound? No, NOT 1992, 1922, eighty years ago! This of course places it squarely in the category of "Silent" and "Black and White".

The age old tale of a sleepy hamlet, and a mysterious Count Graf Orlak from Transylvania who is looking to buy a new property. Our hero leaves his wife behind to travel to the count's castle to make the sale of the deserted house over the road from his own home (Generally not a good move when dealing with vampires)

The count sees a photo of our heroine (the wife) and immediaty packs-up to take residence in his new property, coffins and all. Plague follows in his footsteps as our hero chases him back home...

The count is of course finally thwarted by our brave heroine.

Horror movies
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Modern horror films are funny. I have yet to find a modern movie that can do more than make me jump once or twice and laugh at the rest of it. This movie has no special effects, the only audio is an old-fashioned piano track, and necessary dialog is displayed as words on the screen.

Regardless, it has orders of magnitudes more tension than todays colour extravaganzas. Real deep-down feeling that is hard to feel when you see a familiar actor being blown-up by yet another pyro-effect.

Video
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Yes, just barely. The only visual facility available seems to be the use of dies to colour the film. Pink for dusk and dawn, deep blue for night, and grey or sepia during the day. A surprisingly powerful tool.

Audio
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Erm... Its a piano, but it is in stereo on the DVD ;-)

Acting
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Well, they couldn't project their voices like today's luvvies do, so they projected through movement. Amusingly exagerated movement, which is a little extreme, but once you are used to it does not detract from the tale at hand.

History
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Paraphrased from the box: When this movie was first released, special effects did not exist, and the critics were astounded (bewildered) by the use of time-stop photography to present apparent distortion of time and space.

It was the first film based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, and even with the names changed, the ugly head of ©opyright reared itself, and the film was banned, and the negatives ordered destroyed.

Fortunately one print survived in Germany where the order could not be enforced. The DVD I own contains the original full-length version of the film.

Overall
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Aparrently, this DVD is available in several forms, in various edits under the names "Nosferatu", "Dracula", "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Terror" and "Nosferatu The Vampire"

I finished watching this 81 minute masterpiece about an hour ago, and was compelled to write an op. on it straight away. Does that give you any clues as to my opinion overall?

© 2002 S.Davies